At this stage, the core argument for focusing on the basic structure is established, but a
number of objections might still be raised. In this section, I seek to anticipate two major
objections and offer responses. Doing this should do more than seal potential gaps with
the view, it should also help to better explain the core argument.
The first objection I address is one that questions the restricted focus of the basic
structure. Why not instead focus on the entirety of our social life and see our basic
institutions as part of that social system. While we should judge our social institutions as part of a larger social context, why restrict ourselves to seeing the institutions as only part
of the basic structure? The second objection argues for extending the argument beyond its
intended purview. Why wouldn’t we see the basic structure as itself part of an even larger
system, the global structure?
Why do we need to see the basic structure institutions as part of the basic structure
specifically? One might recognize that we should evaluate the major social institutions as
part of a larger system, but does that larger system need to be the basic structure? Why
not see them as part of society as a whole? Why not evaluate them as part of the full social structure, and determine how the entire social structure ought to be? In all
likelihood, this would seemingly require that we evaluate both the basic structure and
informal structure as working together as part of the same social system.
In “Remarks on Bentham’s philosophy,” J.S. Mill argues against Bentham that he
is too focused on individual actions and not the larger social context in which decisions
are made. His own objection to Bentham might support this first objection to my view.
Mill writes,
“A theory, therefore, which considers little in an action beside that actions’s own consequences...will be most apt to fail in the consideration of greater social questions--the theory of organic institutions and general forms of polity; for those (unlike the details of legislation) to be duly estimated, must be viewed as the great instrument of forming the national character; of carrying forward the members of the community towards perfection, or preserving them from degeneracy.”61
In this quotation, Mill recognizes the major driving intuition behind the argument of this
chapter. We cannot merely evaluate individual actions in isolation, but must see them as
part of the larger social context. For Mill, this meant using the principle of utility to apply
to the entirety of the social context.62 He was concerned with using the principle to
evaluate “national character” and sees our actions are part of these larger social questions.
Mill does not make any such restriction in saying that we should see actions as only part
of practices and practices as only parts of systems. Rather, he seems to suggest that they
are all part of the whole of a national character.
Extending this idea, we only need to ask why we do not start from the largest
possible unit of evaluation. Why not be concerned with evaluating society as a whole,
and see the various aspects of society as part of it. This would mean that we evaluate the
basic structure institutions, the informal structure, and even particular acts as all part of
the national character. The perspective agrees with my claims that we need to take a
larger perspective towards our actions than seeing them in isolation, but why wouldn’t
this larger perspective see all aspects of social life as part of society as a whole and start
from an evaluation of society?
Most simply, we do not evaluate practices as part of the society as a whole
because society is not a system. There is no single activity that all parts of society are
contributing to. We evaluate the major social institutions as part of the basic structure
because they all contribute to the specification of our role as member of society. While I
urge us to take a broader perspective in evaluating actions and practices, this does not
62 “The recognition of happiness as the only thing desirable in itself, and of the production of the state of
things most favourable to happiness as the only rational end both of morals and policy, by no means necessarily leads to the doctrine of expedience...the ethical canon which judges of the morality of an act or class of actions, solely by the probable consequences of that particular kind of act, supposing it to be generally practiced. This is a very small part indeed of what a morel enlarged understanding of the “greatest-happiness principle” would require us to take into account...All acts suppose certain dispositions, habits of mind and heart, which may be in themselves states of enjoyment or wretchedness, and which must
be fruitful in other consequences, besides those particular acts.” Mill, Collected Works, Vol. 10 (Liberty
require that I take a maximally broad perspective. It is because actions contribute to
practices that we need to evaluate them as part of the practice and it is because practices
contribute to systems that we evaluate them as part of the system. Since society is not
understood as any single activity, we do not need to evaluate particulars as part of society.
In response, a teleological moral theory might object that we can see all of society
as contributing to a single activity; the furtherance of the moral end. The utilitarian, for
example, will see all of society as contributing to the activity of promoting the greatest
happiness. Accordingly, we could evaluate any practice as part of a single system; the
system that promotes happiness. Yet, even those who accept such a view need not reject
my conclusion. That we should be concerned with all of society does not mean that we
should not be concerned with the basic structure. If anything, it would only mean that we
should see the basic structure as part of the social structure. If we have a comprehensive
social view, then surely our evaluation of the basic structure should be consistent with
that larger view, but it does not show that you should not focus on the basic structure as a
particular system. Hence the argument does not seem like an objection against a concern
with the basic structure. It merely shows that this concern is insufficient for moral theory,
and I’ve never held that it would be.
As a final point, I want to make a more general point about ethical theory. From
the perspective of any moral goal, anything might be evaluated as instrumental towards
that goal. It is unsurprising that someone who has an ethical goal would then see little
reason to distinguish a concern for the basic structure from a concern with any other part
equality is a moral aim, then the basic structure, like any other part of the social structure,
can contribute to equality. If autonomy is a goal, then both the basic structure and the
informal structure are important for promoting autonomy. Yet, this does not really change
the underlying point of my argument. I mean to emphasize the distinct role that the basic
structure has in establishing our obligations, rights, and powers as members of society.
Even if we ultimately assess the basic structure by some single moral end, the way in
which it implicates that moral end will be unique. The basic structure forms a background
against which each person lives their lives; obligations, rights, duties and opportunities
are all explained by the idiosyncrasies of the basic structure. In so doing, the basic
structure will have unique effects on whatever moral ends we take to be important. Even
if we are concerned with how all of society affects autonomy, equality or happiness, we
have reason to distinguish our concern with the basic structure because of the unique
ways in which the obligations, rights, and powers we recognize will effect autonomy,
equality and happiness.
3.3.2 Second objection: focusing on the global structure
A second objection extends my argument and argues that just as we should evaluate the
major institutions as part of the basic structure of society, so should we evaluate the basic
structure as part of the global structure. We could not then properly evaluate the basic
structure without evaluating the global structure.
My first response is to point out that this is not, strictly speaking, an objection to
that still does not count against evaluating the basic structure as a moral concern. It
merely suggests that we need to take a broader view to properly do so.
Nonetheless, we also should not see the basic structure of society as part of the
global structure. Actions are part of social practices because practices only exist when
persons act in accordance with the rules, and institutions are part of the basic structure
because the basic structure only exists when the practices that compose it exist. Yet, it is
not the case that the global structure is made up of basic structures. Rather, the global
structure consists of international practices, and those practices consist in actions by
international agents--such as states, corporations and various NGOs. In this way, the
global structure is similar to the basic structures rather than constituted by basic structures. The difference between the two is that the basic structure is a structure of
practices between persons whereas the global structure is a structure of practices between
international agents. Whereas the objection supposes a relationship like that in figure A
So, while the objection supposes that my argument should be extended to see the basic
structure as part of the global structure, the conclusion we should draw is quite different.
Just as we need to evaluate the basic structure to properly evaluate individual actions, so
we should evaluate the global structure to properly evaluate international actions.
Of course, this argument relies on a certain empirical fact about the global
structure, that international practices and the global structure are constituted by actions of
international agents rather than by individual agents. This point might seem contentious,
but my argument still stands even if I am wrong. Suppose it is the case that international
practices are constituted by the actions of individual agents. This still would not imply that the basic structure should be evaluated as part of the global structure. Instead, it
would imply either (a) that the global structure is a system of practices alongside the
basic structure as system or (b) that the global structure counts as a basic structure. If (a),
the global structure might establish claims that individuals make on one another as
members of the globe--rather than as members of society. In the case of (b), the global
structure would establish obligations, rights, and powers for persons as members of
society, in which case there would be a global basic structure. In either case, it would not
mean that we should see the basic structure as part of the global structure.